Fellborn
by Zombie Cat Scientist
Summary: Moon is a winged shape-shifter who doesn't know what he is. Turns out he's one of the monsters called the Fell. (No knowledge of the books necessary)


**Fellborn**

**Summary: **Moon is a flying shifter who doesn't know what he is. Turns out he's a monster known as 'Fell'. (No knowledge of the books needed.)

* * *

.

Moon's earliest memories were of his mother Sorrow taking him and his siblings, alternating between running and flying from shadowy winged pursuers he could no longer quite remember the details of, and then of his brief days with them struggling to survive but more or less living happily together. It was the last time in his life he wasn't lonely, for his next sharpest memory was of being groggily thrown from their nest in a tree before raptor-like scaly groundling predators clambered up into the nest and attacked his siblings.

He had no clue why, but he had been the only one who could shift to a winged form besides Sorrow, which likely explained why he was the one she chose to toss out of the nest. Not a very good flier at the time, by the time he had managed to return to the tall tree high in the canopy by a mixture of climbing and flapping back from his glide, they had all already been slaughtered and eaten.

Too young to really survive on his own, he had been terrified he would be eaten himself when he had been forced to go into groundling cities to beg for food or steal, and had to painstakingly learn the local languages. Thankfully, most people were not actually interested in eating other people. Never truly fitting in, he'd drifted a bit from place to place, looking for his own kind until, finally, he gave up and settled in a city. Moon was surprised to realize he didn't actually mind the people there, even if they were different from him at least they didn't eat other sapients.

As if the world was toying with him, that was the moment the Fell appeared.

They came in peace, at first. "We want to be your friends," their beautiful, entrancing rulers promised. "We come to trade. Let us into your city."

The city believed them. Who wouldn't? One couldn't even tell just by looking at them that they could shift into flighted forms, so they looked almost defenseless.

They were, in their winged form, black or dark gray like himself. They came in several forms, the large kethel and comparitively tiny dakti who were both controlled by the 'rulers', roughly groundling-sized male beings with a crown-like crest on their head that resembled his own. There was one notable difference, however: when they shifted to the groundling wingless form, their skin was alabaster white, and Moon's wasn't. He could only assume he was a melanistic mutant, like the reverse of some albino groundling individuals he'd seen.

His curiosity got the better of him, and he flew to meet one of them. "Am I one of you?" he asked.

The stare he got was disturbing. It felt empty, somehow, yet also liked it wanted to draw you into that void to fill itself. "You are. I'm Liheas, a ruler like you. Has anyone told you how beautiful you are?" Liheas's compliments drew him in against his better judgment, and he even let Liheas kiss him. "Most of the rulers in my flight are relatives of mine. We could use fresh blood. We'll take good care of you."

Moon was on top of the world, smitten and finally not alone. It felt too good to be true.

It was.

"I think we've found the only thing of interest to take here," Liheas purred, turning toward his fellow ruler, his brother, Karthas. "Let's kill them all."

Liheas embraced his, took him as the city burned. Moon felt so ashamed, he nearly snapped Liheas's neck in his sleep, but one thing stopped him. Liheas had not lied to him. He was clearly the same sort of creature, and it seemed like he did want him. But Moon could not abide all of this.

He sneaked away in the night without harming Liheas.

This would be one of the biggest regrets of his life.

.

* * *

.

They pursued him relentlessly for several years. Eventually, they caught up to him in a groundling city where the groundlings had poison that worked against Fell, but only if the Fell ate the groundlings, which Fell who weren't Moon liked to do very much.

"Moon, we've augured that you are here. If you come out, we'll spare the people here. If you do not, we'll kill them even if we can't eat them," Liheas promised him coldly. "How could you abandon me, after the beautiful night we had together?"

Moon might be a loner most of his life, but he was not devoid of compassion. He came out, hating himself for it, because if he knew one thing, it was that Fell tell lies. But what else could he do?

"Why do you do this?" he begged.

Liheas gave him a confused look. "They are inferior prey, Moon. You've been solitary most of your life, so you've never been properly taught. Groundlings don't _really_ have feelings Moon, they just act like they do." It was a twisted and completely self-serving philosophy that bordered on solipsism.

"How do you know that for sure?" Moon demanded.

"How do you know it's untrue?" Liheas countered. "Come. You are too young to interest the progenitor, but you should come into maturity by the time her offspring does."

"Progenitor?" Moon asked.

"A female Fell, and, in a sense, the true ruler."

They killed all the groundlings in the city anyway. They didn't bother to pursue those who fled. That was... something, at least, but they could hardly claim to have kept their word. It was far more out of laziness and hunger for prey they could actually eat than any compassion. At this point, Moon was pretty sure they had no compassion for anything but themselves.

But did that include him?

If they had really cared, they would have respected his wishes and left him alone, he decided.

.

* * *

There was another male ruler in the flight, Janeus, who he met when they dragged him home. The progenitor showed little interest in him, but her daughter Ranea was another story. She enjoyed toying with Moon and would do whatever she felt like to him. To his surprise, this seemed to upset Liheas a bit, especially after one mission where she nearly got Moon killed. They all knew Moon didn't like to attack groundlings, but the progenitor insisted on him going anyway, putting him into the line of fire.

"She doesn't care about us rulers at all," he complained one day.

"Don't pretend you care about me either," Moon snapped, and Liheas gave him an indignant look.

"I gave you a home."

"You kidnapped me," Moon snarled, and flew off to sulk in another bower. Liheas, mercifully, did not follow.

* * *

.

"Congratulations, Moon. To mark your maturity at 35 turns, you are finally being given command of some of your own kethel and dakti," Liheas told him.

"Fantastic," Moon said, voice devoid of enthusiasm, but inwardly, he was plotting. He had not made an escape attempt in many years, and recently, while he still did not preemptively attack, would occasionally defend other Fell who were a little more tolerable than others, such as one strange dakti who insisted on trying to make sure he always had enough to eat. Had they finally made the foolish mistake of trusting him?

"We're going on an important mission immediately, so get control of your minions from the progenitor and get your tail moving."

"Where?" Moon said.

"A Raksuran court nearer to the coast than where we picked you up. The beings there look like us except for frills instead of crowns, but don't be fooled: they aren't us, just close relatives. Some of their members can't even shift," Liheas said derisively. "The progenitor wants several of them alive, especially the winged ones, but that shouldn't be a problem for you. You never kill anyway."

Alive? Why?

A slow, horrified feeling came upon him. If they were related, it made sense they would do exactly what they did to the last being they kept alive, which was himself. They wanted to forcibly breed with them.

Moon would have only one chance.

Unfortunately, he soon realized as he took count of the numbers on each side and realized the court was horribly outnumbered, that chance would have to come after the defending side had already picked some of the Fell off and eyes had fallen off of him in the confusion. He was disturbed, also, to realize the dumb kethel he had always assumed were mindless actually could think, as he could feel them briefly squirm under his control as he told them to do something they found confusing, pick off other Fell when no one was paying attention and to have some of them hang back and conserve their strength while the other two parties exhausted themselves.

"This looks to be just about under control, so I'm going to leave you and Karthas to it. This is your chance to prove yourself, Moon," Liheas put his clawed hand on Moon's plated shoulder, and Moon felt sick to his stomach at the touch and relieved when it was shortly gone.

He watched him go warily, and even then did not dare immediately spring his full attack. Rulers of shared blood could communicate telepathically, that much he had picked up in his years among them. If he was going to take advantage of weakened and split forces, he needed Liheas to be at least a few minutes away. Ideally, Karthas would never see it coming and wouldn't be able to communicate it back either, but Liheas would sense a dead ruler too. Rumor among the groundlings had it you needed to cut off a ruler's head and bury it underground, preferably with salt, to stop the others from coming for revenge. He had no idea if that was true or not, but it sounded plausible.

It was almost too late by the time he finally had his best opportunity. Karthas had snatched up a clutch of winged little ones, who squirmed and yelled. Two of them were drab gray males, superficially resembling himself, and one was a green shiny scaled girl with frills and a long tail.

"We've got the consorts and a queen, we can leave the kethel and dakti to kill the rest. Come on, I don't want Liheas to leave us in the dust like he always does. Who does he think he is?" Karthas snorted, turning his back on Moon.

Moon walked up to him and did what he should have done to Liheas years ago.

He grabbed his head, twisted, and snapped his neck.

The chicks screamed in terror and confusion as they dropped to the ground, and bite and kicked when he grabbed the youngest and least able to get away, the one gray male too young to fly. He used their loyally following their kin to lead them further away from the fighting, where kethel was now striking kethel. "You killed your own kind! How could you?" "Leave Bitter Starburst alone!"

"Wait, ssshhh, I'm on your side!" Moon cried out. "I don't like other Fell or what they do, that's why I killed him."

"Really?" said the girl, skeptical but hopeful. "Then let Bitter go."

Bitter was a terrible name, Moon thought, but now wasn't the time to comment. He let the boy down. "You need to flee immediately. If you go back to your court, you'll just get captured again."

"I'm Frost," said the girl. "My Arbora caretakers-" her whats? The groundling Raksura, maybe? "say to never trust Fell."

"Then your Arbora are pretty smart, but I'm not like other Fell. I'm Moon, and I wasn't raised by other Fell." The children still stared at him uneasily, but at least they weren't hitting, biting and kicking him anymore.

"I'm Thorn," said the last unidentified boy child. "I think he's right, Frost. Look at all the fighting!" he pointed a clawed hand.

"They aren't winning, are they?" said Frost softly and fearfully, eyes looking like they wanted to water. There was no need to clarify who 'they' was. "You could still be plotting something bad. But it doesn't look like we have a choice."

Moon tried to think of something to reassure them, as he picked them up and fled. They were running out of time before reinforcements came, so there was no time to waste on sitting and talking. But flying and talking, he could still do.

"What if I let you all pick a direction? Do you have anywhere else safe you could go to?" A part of him felt his stomach lurch at the thought of showing up to a city clearly identified as a Fell, but he also didn't fancy his abilities to raise three children alone, even if he was a half-decent hunter.

"We have an ally court, but..." Thorn started to cry. "I don't know where it is!"

"I don't know if I should tell you. What if that is the trick?" Frost said, also upset. "I don't know what to do. I'm a queen, I'm supposed to be the leader."

"Sshhh," Moon soothed. "It's okay, you don't have to tell me."

By the time he'd finally exhausted himself into wanting to find a place to rest, all the children had cried at least once against his shoulders.

.

* * *

.

Moon wasted no time putting large amounts of distance between him and the enemy, but was slowed by the fact that he had three hungry mouths in tow. Thankfully, he was fairly sure the Fell had no idea which direction he'd went, and even if they did, he'd changed directions from time to time. He spent some brief time in a groundling city, selling furs to get them a place to sleep for the night, but mostly to get some news and bearings on where they were in the region.

"I've never been in a groundling city before," Frost remarked, awed. "It's even bigger than our court, and there are so many different kinds of people!"

"Yeah," Moon chuckled. "It was overwhelming for me the first time too." More so, since he didn't remember ever having a court as a small child. Probably for the best, if it had actually been a Fell flight. The memory of his flightless siblings confused him somewhat. Were they actually Raksuran children kidnapped by Fell? His 'mother' had brown scales like a Raksuran too, come to think of it. Had he been brought along by accident in a rescue mission gone wrong?

Moon bought a hat to wear to obscure his Fell crown-like crest when he shifted. It was stupid looking when Raksurans didn't tend to wear much except jewelry when they shifted, but maybe it would keep him alive if he could pretend to be a Raksuran consort instead of a Fell ruler, at least at first glimpse.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying not to look too much like a Fell," he admitted.

"How silly! You smell like one!"

Smell? How rude. But he took it into consideration. "What perfumes do you think would suit me best?"

The children giggled and had a great time figuring that out, which, incidentally, set him back several weeks just trying to pay for it all. Thankfully, he was a very good fisherman, and one time he even found a clam with a pearl, which more than made up for one of the expensive perfumes the over-enthusiastic children had spilled all over in one of the vendor stalls.

That fact itself was quickly commented on by the children: "Raksura don't fish!"

"I don't think Fell do, either. They prefer eating groundlings. Would you rather I gobble you up?" he teased, then froze, wondering if he'd gone too far. That joke was funnier when you thought there was no chance of it ever happening.

But Frost merely got a little flustered. "No! I wouldn't let you, I'd bite you and protect my brothers like a true queen!"

"Well said," he complimented. Frost was a little fireball, wasn't she? "I suppose if you think it's stupid none of you would want me to teach you how to do it, now would you?"

"We never said that!" Thorn jumped up quickly.

Having been a mixture of bored and terrified, they all took to having something constructive to do very quickly, and learned fishing like an otter takes to water.

"Raksura don't fish, hm?" he teased when Frost dove up out from the water with a mouthful of fish. She glared cutely at him.

.

* * *

.

When Moon saw a huge, gray shape flying in the air spying on them fishing peacefully, he freaked, fearing it was a kethel. It didn't quite look like a kethel, which confused him, but if it was a big flying thing then it was almost certainly a predator. "Get to safety!" he urged, flaring his wings to try and make himself look bigger and to obscure the view of them from the flying monster.

"Moon, that's a Raksuran consort! A really old one!" Frost told him, to his confusion.

He reluctantly and warily closed his wings, just as it dove at him. He yelped and made a run for the water, hoping it wouldn't be much inclined to swim after him if 'Raksurians did not fish', only turning his head to make sure it wasn't really going after the children. Wasting his time to do this turned out to be a mistake, because it snatched him up.

"Put him down! He's our friend! He saved us from Fell!"

The being shifted to a gray groundling form, and Moon gave a terrified shiver, as the older male still had a firm grip on him, dangling him over the water.

"He looks like he could be Fell himself," said the consort uncertainly. "What is with that terrible hat, and that weird overwhelming smell?" Did all Raksurans have keen noses? Not that it would take much to smell perfume, Moon had to admit. The stranger dumped Moon on the ground, and Moon scrambled away, embarrassed when the trio of children moved in front of him. "Why is an older consort carting around three young ones who should still be in the nest?" Whether he actually bought the story was unclear, but the elder seemed to be going with it for now.

"Our court was attacked by Fell. Moon saved us! I'm Frost, and these are my brothers Bitter and Thorn."

"Bitter is a terrible name, I'm not calling him that," said the elder. "I'm Stone. As a coincidence, I was just heading toward an ally court on my return journey home. The court this way, it wouldn't happen to be yours, would it?"

They all exchanged looks. "Unless there is another, then almost certainly," Moon said. "We've only been traveling for a month together, and it's hard to travel far with three children even when fleeing for your life."

"Bitter isn't his full name, we will call him Star instead," Frost said like a tiny authority figure. Which, in a way, she was, as Moon didn't care to argue or speak much. "You will take us to your court."

Stone laughed. "As you wish, little lady. My court was actually hoping to acquire some consorts, if older ones." He gave an uneasy glance toward Moon again. "The last consort to join our court, Ember, was supposed to be for my great great grandaughter Jade, but our reigning queen Pearl picked him for herself."

"That seems kind of mean," Thorn commented.

"Well, Ember was more suited for Pearl's personality. Consort's choice matters too," Stone told him.

"You can go without me," Moon said, already resigning himself back to years of endless loneliness. It was what his whole life had been like, so why did it hurt so much? "Stone already said it, I'm weird and look like Fell. No queen would want me. You'll be better off without me, anyway." Liheas would hunt him for the rest of his life for revenge, splitting up the targets was the best option to have the little ones escape his notice.

"Nooo!" the children shrieked, running up to him and grabbing at his legs. "You're ours, Moon! We're your clutch now."

Stone was looking slightly amused now, and Moon got the feeling he wasn't the highly expressive type. "You heard them. You're coming with us."

Moon felt certain this could only end in disaster. The entire court was going to learn how weird he was and hate him.

.

* * *

.

That wasn't what happened, although it was close. Many gave him distrustful looks. Turns out even when they didn't think he was a Fell, a solitary consort wasn't something well-trusted by anyone. Consorts were prized, so you had to do something pretty horrible to get kicked out of your clan. Frost tried to ameliorate this by claiming Moon was from her court, but he didn't know how many bought the lie, especially when Moon refused to tell it himself and just shrugged when anyone asked.

His ignorance became obvious when he asked rather blundering, confused questions of the warrior Chime: "So mentors, your augurs, can come in winged forms?"

Chime bristled.

"Fine, don't tell me."

"Wait! I'm sorry, I'm just a little sensitive about it. I used to be a mentor Arbora, one of our wingless, but recently our court has been having troubles and I think the stress caused me to shift. One night, I found myself with a pair of wings, can you imagine it?"

It sounded pretty horrifying, especially if it could happen in reverse. Chime was quick to reassure him it couldn't, as there was no need that way. Non-reproductive warriors were the ones who did the bulk of the hunting, Arbora did just about everything else, and mentor Arbora were the ones with special abilities like scrying. Mostly just scrying, but there were some good healers among their number, like Flower.

"Sounds like your rulers aren't useful for much except making babies," Moon remarked rather dryly, and Chime looked at him a little horrified but struggling to make a good counter response. It was only belatedly he realized he used the Fell word instead of the Raksuran, but thankfully Chime didn't seem to notice.

"That's not true! They defend the court in times of need and help provide guidance. Line-grandfathers can grow rather huge in their old age, bigger than anyone else in their winged forms, and are really useful against kethel." He could see how that could be true, he admitted.

"Stone is leaving to go check if there are any more survivors." That was faintly possible. Moon had set the kethel and dakti all fighting against each other and there had still been Raksuran stragglers hanging on to survival at the time, after all. If Liheas had focused them all on chasing Moon instead of finishing off the rest, they might just have made it. "He'd like you to meet his descendant, Jade."

Oh, hell no. Moon gave a fearful twitch of his tail. "She won't like me." Pearl definitely hadn't liked him, especially when abnormally she hadn't been able to immediately force him to shift back to his groundling form. He'd faked a forced shift back, just to appease her and the looks he got, but the incident had been frightening. He'd been quick to assert he was just there to make sure the clutch was taken care of and had fled the room before anything even more disastrous could happen, like someone inquiring about his weird perfume and hat.

"You don't know that until you try! Besides, she's already here."

Moon whirled to see Jade, and he had to admit his breath was taken a bit away by her blue scaled form. Even in groundling form, she still had a tail, which she curled elegantly around herself a little shyly. She stretched out her hands, holding a golden band for him.

"I, um, brought you a gift."

"You didn't need to," he said. He didn't need anyone's pity, or bribery into friendship.

Jade gave a frustrated look toward Chime, and Moon wondered if he'd done something culturally insensitive. "I'm sorry I could not ask your matriarch first," she apologized. "I hope you don't mind."

"Ask them for what?" Moon asked, rather confused.

Chime and Jade were definitely sharing a surprised thought right now, though what it was he didn't know. "Permission to meet up with you, of course. I didn't believe the rumors, but you really were a solitary before, weren't you?"

He supposed the jig was up, and opted for some version of the truth. "I was for awhile. I don't remember my birth court. But after a time I was captured by the Fell." Jade and Chime gasped. "That was how I was able to learn about the attack on the court and rescue the fledglings. I slowly earned the trust of the Fell over the years by playing a compliant captive, and chose this as my moment of escape."

"You pulled a Fell on the Fell," Jade said approvingly. It just made Moon want to wince. The statement was more true than he hoped she'd ever know.

"That's why you can't want me, Jade." He looked away, not wanting them to fully see his shame on his face, or their condemnation. "I'm more Fell than a proper consort, even if I don't eat groundlings." That was also more true than he wanted her to ever know.

"I don't care," she told him, reaching out her hand, pulling his face to look back toward hers, and for a moment he was mesmerized. "You seem like every other high strung consort I've ever met, with the same delicate sensibilities."

_You will care, _he thought achingly. It took every bit of willpower he had to pull back and flee from her embrace.

Later, Chime finds him and distracts him by asking him to teach him how to fly and hunt better. Moon agrees.

.

* * *

.

The Fell visit while Stone is gone, and it is Moon's worst nightmare, for the Fell is Liheas.

"Moon! I know you are here. Return to us."

Moon tries not to show how much he is quaking in terror when he strides out. "Pearl," he addressed the reigning queen. "You can't believe him when he says he comes in peace and only wants to join courts with yours. The Fell are monsters. They will kill anyone they regard as useless to them."

"If that's true, then how can they trust you, Moon?" Liheas laughs. "You still haven't told them, have you?"

Moon freezes.

Then he flees for his life.

"The Fell spy among your ranks, it was Moon all along!" Liheas cackles, and sends a kethel to chase after him. "Now, about us joining courts?"

"I'll think about it," said Pearl stiffly and diplomatically. Even fleeing, Moon had a good feeling her real answer was 'No'. No sane person would agree after all of that, after knowing what the Fell had done to their ally court.

It is not a Fell that catches him first, or more accurately crashes him, as the flier is very clumsy. Chime smacks him right out of the air and into a hiding place as the kethel soars over head.

"What are you doing?" he gasps.

"Fell or not, I care about you Moon! You're nice and you care about others. That story about years alone was right, wasn't it? But where we saw it as a tragedy, that's what gave you the chance to learn to be unlike other Fell, wasn't it?" Chime said. Moon nodded, still in disbelief that anyone could care about him, could still want him after he lied. Just like a Fell to lie, really.

Chime embraces him, and against all his better senses, he allows Chime to lead him back to the court. He looks fearfully toward Jade most of all for her reaction, unsure if he could take it, but she surprises him. Her face clearly shows worry for him, not hate.

"I told you I didn't care Moon, didn't I?" Jade repeated. "How stupid do you think I am? I suspected the truth from the beginning."

She didn't care. He is flabbergasted. But most of all, he is hopeful, and as she presses close, he finds himself responding. "Do you... really? Want me?" he says, unsure and frightened.

She kisses him.

.

* * *

.

When Stone returns, it is just in time for the Fell's inevitable attack. He doesn't seem too surprised by Moon being a Fell, and he begins to wonder if he ever truly fooled anyone. He brings with him a few surviving warriors from the ally court that was attacked by the Fell previously.

When the court is overwhelmed in spite of these new reinforcements, due a hybrid Fell-Raksura with the ability to stop warriors from shifting into flighted form, it is Moon who finds a way to save the day, by inspiring rebellion in the dakti and kethel, long thought to be mindless fodder. "Look at how they all treat you!" he shouts. Speeches are not really his forte, but he will try. "Look how readily they take over your very bodies and punish those who show any signs of independence, how readily they send you to die against your foes! The progenitor doesn't care about any of you, even if she is your mother!"

But oddly, it is Liheas his speech makes the biggest impression on.

"Moon. You betrayed us. How could you? We loved you."

"Did you really, Liheas? Can you really say what I say is untrue? You forced me Liheas. That's not love. If you truly love me, you will let me go."

And to his shock...

Liheas does. With a mournful gaze of his beautiful alabaster face, he calls his dakti and kethel out from the battle, and shifts to his flighted form and takes to the skies. They do not return.

.

.

The End.


End file.
